A Visit to Avalon
by KoopaSensei
Summary: On the road to recovering from his mental trauma, Harry attempts to get some closure from an old foe.


"Reason for the visit, Mr. Potter?" the guard asked Harry, clearly surprised to see the famous Auror and hero of Britain's Second Wizarding War at his post that early in the morning. The man was a few years older than Harry, but despite the bags under his eyes and scruff on his chin the guard reminded Harry immediately of the Creevey brothers, full of hero worship at first blush.

Putting his hands in the pockets of his Muggle jeans, Harry lied. "I need to speak with one of the prisoners regarding an ongoing case." It didn't take someone with Legilimency to see that wasn't the case, Harry was far from the best liar in the world. But the guard put up no resistance, and let Harry into the tiny outpost, the entrance to Avalon.

One of the first acts of Minister Shacklebolt, once the war was truly over and the Ministry was beginning to take shape once more, was to abolish Azkaban. Even without considering the fact that the Dementors had turned treasonous, using magical beings that caused depression in those around them as prison guards was something many in the Order, Harry included, couldn't find themselves conscionable to any longer. There were several attempts to destroy the building and dementors as well, but both proved to be quite dangerous once provoked. Without that as an option, the Ministry used the area as a quarantine for the creatures, and did their best to make sure they didn't escape to the world at large.

Without that as an option, the Ministry put together a team to find somewhere else to hold their prisoners. Between the living Death Eaters, Ministry employees who had crossed the line under Voldemort's rule, and those from Azkaban who had been reinvestigated and found to still be in need of a prison sentence, it was clear that the facility would need to be quite large. After several months of research, both into the design of modern Muggle prisons and what the Department of Mysteries had to offer them, they were able to put Avalon into practice.

The small facility Harry found himself in was merely the entrance, but as such was guarded by four wizards at any time, each of them qualified enough to have become an Auror. It was built on a small plot of land in the countryside outside of Kent, one they'd made Unplottable and enchanted to make Apparation impossible. For an added measure of security, they'd also used the Fidelius Charm, with the Minister as the secret keeper. Upon his death or removal from office, they would change facilities, and cast the charm again with the new Minister. The special thing about this particular building, really, was the heavily guarded fireplace, the only one in the world capable of reaching Avalon via a direct Floo channel.

Not even Harry was quite sure as to where exactly Avalon was, except that it was several miles below the surface of the earth. It was staffed by many more guards, as well as an on-site staff of Healers for the guards and those they guarded. After a quick Floo trip to the subterranean prison, Harry went up to the reception desk. With tiled floors, enchanted electric lights, and comfortable seating options in the room, it was a few steps more modern, and more Muggle, than most Ministry buildings. The roguishly handsome wizard behind the desk gave Harry an easy smile, something that made Harry feel more than a little proud. While he hadn't been on the Avalon team directly, several of his friends had been, and it was good to see they'd made a place that could contain the necessary criminals without driving all around it to misery and despair. "Hello, sir. May I ask you who you're here to see today?"

This wasn't Harry's first time at the prison, but it was the first time he'd come here for personal reasons. He told the receptionist who he was there to talk with, and the man didn't blink at the request at all. Instead, he sent out a flying memo and requested Harry sit down and wait to be called. It was hard not to fall asleep once he flopped into the soft armchair, but his dread and anxiety made sure that wouldn't really be a possibility. With nothing else to do, Harry's mind turned to why he'd come in the first place.

It had been Hermione who'd suggested therapy. In the years after the war, there were only so many panic attacks and nights waking up screaming that his friends could take before they said something, and as much as Ginny wanted to help, the Wizarding World didn't have much in the way of mental health care. It took a little searching to find a therapist he could go and see without breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, but it was worth it. Harry had spent the first half of his 20's doing his best to try and cope with his trauma however he could. Some treatments had helped, some hadn't, but in the end one thing kept coming back.

Closure.

Throughout his formative years, Harry had suffered numerous traumatic experiences at the hands of people far more powerful than him, and very few of his relationships had ended with anything resembling closure. Of course, quite a few of them had ended with the other party's death, but that was a whole different can of worms. Still, there was one person out there that Harry actually, genuinely wanted to talk to, that he felt might be able to give him help.

"She's is waiting for you, in a visitor's room," he was told, breaking him out of his revery. After taking a deep breath, Harry rose from his chair, his limbs feeling like they might explode from the nervous energy building up in them. Walking faster than he usually did, Harry followed a guard through several hallways before reaching one of visitor's rooms. It was split into halves, with heavy-duty enchantments barring the prisoners from being able to cross into the area inhabited by the visitor, but otherwise just as well furnished as any other part of the prison. Sitting in the comfortable looking chair, at a table in the center of the room, was a woman who had not aged very well.

Dolores Umbridge did still very much looked like an overly large toad, but her once mousey-brown hair was full of steely strands and her all-pink ensemble had been changed out for a nondescript beige uniform, the same as all the other inmates in Avalon. There were numerous other small changes here and there, where age and imprisonment had clearly taken its toll, but her posture and expression looked the same as it did in Harry's nightmares: her back straight and her eyes full of cruelty. "Hello, Mr. Potter," she said, her voice still sickly sweet. "Please, take a seat."

Harry had fully intended to do so, but after having it offered it to him, as if Umbridge was still his teacher, he changed his mind. "I'll stand, thank you."

They waited there for nearly a full minute: Umbridge still seated at the table, Harry standing feet away, his arms crossed. He could see her look over his clothing, all of it Muggle. It had been necessary for his visit to Kent, not wanting to attract any undue attention, but he'd also done it because he knew it would annoy her. Small victories. But that displeasure he knew she was feeling didn't show on her face, and she broke the silence by stating, "I've heard you've become an Auror, Mr. Potter." She made no mention of the fact that she'd made it clear in his fifth year that such a profession would be an impossibility for Harry. "May I ask why you've come to see me?"

Well, it seemed as though he wouldn't be able to beat around the bush any longer. "I want to know why." Feeling like it was best to start at the beginning, he raised his hand, the back of it still scarred from what her quill had done to him. The sight of it made pride flare in her eyes, which only made the rage beginning to spark in Harry's heart grow hotter. "Why did you do this to me?"

As if it was her entire goal in life to make Harry more upset, her immediate response to the question was a girlish giggle. "Why, Mr. Potter, I feel that should be obvious. After all, it does say 'I should not tell lies' on the back of your hand. Really, you did that to yourself." Letting out a sigh as though she was disappointed, she continued, "If you'd only learned to properly follow the rules, there would have been a need for punishment."

"_Punishment_?!" Harry asked, incredulous. "This is torture. Physical abuse. You were a teacher! I was a minor! How were you able to justify doing this to a child, Dolores?" She flinched at the use of her first name, and Harry couldn't help internally comparing it to how Tom Riddle had reacted at the end, when Harry had refused to continue using his ridiculous moniker.

For the first time in their conversation, the blatantly false smile left Umbridge's lips, replaced with a tight scowl. "It seems we disagree on the matter of corporal punishment, but that is no reason to be rude, Mr. Potter. You must remember that you were spreading dangerous lies at school; I was well within my rights to use my authority to stop you."

Harry looked at the woman as though she'd suddenly grown an extra head. "Lies? But...I was right! Tom Riddle had returned, that's a well-established fact now. I hadn't been lying, you and the Ministry had! I was one of the only people telling the truth!"

Once again, the ex-Hogwarts teacher looked as though she was disappointed in a pupil. "Mr. Potter, that had not been made clear until the end of that semester. The official statement by the Ministry for Magic was You-Know-Who was still deceased, so any statement to the contrary must have been a lie. That otherwise was later proven has no bearing to my actions at the time."

Rubbing his forehead in irritation, Harry realized there was no way she was going to cave in the illogical nature of her argument. With that in mind, he switched targets. "What about sending the dementors after me earlier, in the summer? Or threatening to use the Cruciatus Curse on me and my friends? Those were blatantly illegal, even considering your position in the Ministry."

The smile was back now, and with it honeyed words dripping with malice. "Those claims were never proven, if you'll remember correctly, Mr. Potter. I have no need to defend actions that did not happen." She was correct. At her trial, he'd petitioned for those charges to be added to her indictment, but she'd covered up her tracks quite well regarding the dementors. The only evidence of the other crime was his and the rest of the DA's testimonies, which none of them particularly wanted to give, considering the extralegal actions they'd been taking at the time. Even if they had, she hadn't actually used the spell, so whether it was a crime or not was still a legal gray area.

Running a hand through his messy black hair, Harry tried pivoting again. "What about your actions later on? You separated families, sent innocent people to Azkaban, broke wands, and helped administer the Dementor's Kiss to Newblood's who resisted you. You worked closely with the Death Eater's, including Yaxley!" Ever since the war, there had been a stronger push from those wizards and witches with Muggle parents to stand against inequality, including rejecting the label of 'Muggleborn', which tied them to that they weren't, and adopting 'Newblood', which emphasized what they were.

Umbridge winced at his use of the word, which he'd expected and watched with satisfaction. "My actions were perfectly in line with Ministry policy. We'd been given information that those Muggleborns had, in fact, stolen their magic from others, and I had no clue at all that some of my coworkers were followers of You-Know-Who."

Finally, Harry allowed himself to smile in triumph, which caught Umbridge off-guard. "I was there when you attempted to use that defence during your trial, Dolores. The Wizengamot didn't find it any more believable than I did. You weren't just following orders, you were helping dictate policy. You were using your power to terrorize and harm others, and you reveled in it. You didn't question where the new direction came from because you were happy to see it happen. You may have not been a Death Eater, but you might as well have been."

At those words, Umbridge looked as thought she'd taken a sip of what she'd thought was tea, only to discover it was bubotuber pus. "Yes, well," she finally said, looking like she was doing her best to regain her composure, "That may be how my actions are seen now. But time will see how history remembers me. In the next few decades, some may look back and realize that You-Know-Who, for all his crimes, may have had a more accurate way of looking at the world than the current establishment does. Coddling some people by pretending they're the same as their betters does no one any good, Mr. Potter."

There it was, Harry realized. At her core, Umbridge was just another person who'd been quietly supporting Tom Riddle's ideas the whole time, and relished the chance to use her authority to make her worldview a reality. There was no truth to be found, no hidden good side to uncover. Still, Harry did feel relieved, in some way. Before he left, there was one last piece of catharsis he had to deliver. "Dolores, you're delusional if you think that's ever going to happen. Newblood rights, werewolf rights, and the right of magical creatures in general are being expanded and protected more than ever before. If you're mentioned in history books at all, it will be as the teacher who tortured her students, and as a Death Eater collaborator who caused more pain and suffering than many thought was possible. You'll be remembered as a monster, Dolores."

With that said, Harry left the room, and soon after the prison. It had felt good, but he also knew it was only half-true. For every step forward they took, they had to struggle against thousands of years of tradition and an entire class of people who were openly hostile to their intentions. The oldest Pureblood families were quite happy with the way things had been working beforehand, and the growing movement towards equality was one that they were ready to fight with everything they had. Even wizards who weren't Pureblooded were struggling with Hermione's ideas regarding non-Human magical beings, despite how much help they'd been in defeating Tom Riddle. There was still a long road ahead of Wizarding Britain towards anything resembling a truly good and equal society. After a quick goodbye to the guard at the waystation, Harry exited to the fresh autumn air, and continued his path down that road.


End file.
